Soylent is a brand of meal replacement products available in the United States, named after the food product in the science-fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! Soylent was introduced in 2014 after a crowdfunding campaign that generated nearly $1.5 million in preorders.[3]

In January 2013, software engineer Rob Rhinehart purchased 35 chemical ingredients—including potassium gluconate, calcium carbonate, monosodium phosphate, maltodextrin, olive oil—all of which he deemed to be necessary for survival, based on his readings of biochemistry textbooks and U.S. government websites.[7][8] Rhinehart used to view food as a time-consuming hassle and had resolved to treat it as an engineering problem.

He blended the ingredients with water and consumed only this drink for the next 30 days. Over the course of the next two months, he adjusted the proportions of the ingredients to counter various health issues and further refined the formula.[7][9][10] Rhinehart claimed a host of health benefits from the drink and noted that it had greatly reduced his monthly food bill, which fell from about US$470 to $50, and the time spent behind the preparation and consumption of food whilst providing him greater control over his nutrition.[7]

Soylent is named after a food in Harry Harrison's 1966 science fictionnovelMake Room! Make Room![11][12] In the novel, most types of soylent are made from soy and lentils. The word also evokes the 1973 film adaptation Soylent Green, in which the eponymous food is made from human remains.[8] Rhinehart also says he chose the name, with its morbid associations, to pique curiosity and deeper investigation, since the name was clearly not chosen with a traditionally "flashy" marketing scheme in mind.[13]

In 2013, a community of people interested in making their own Soylent emerged online, attracted by the ability to customize nutrition precisely to each person's unique needs.[14] Another software engineer, Nick Poulden, founded the web site diy.soylent.me (now www.completefoods.co), where users shared the results of their own tinkering with the Soylent recipe.[8][15][14] Users could enter a nutritional profile and select a recipe, and the web site would calculate exact proportions of each ingredient to yield the desired intake of each nutrient.[8] Zach Alexander, a former professional cook, made a Soylent formula mostly from ingredients available at grocery stores rather than laboratory supply houses, which he calls Hackerschool Soylent.[15]

Prior to June 2015, Soylent was only available for purchase and shipment to people in the United States. On June 15, 2015, the shipping of Soylent to Canada was introduced[20] at the same price in U.S. dollars as for U.S. customers. Expansion to European countries is a stated future goal. In October 2017, Canada disallowed further shipments of Soylent due to a failure to meet Canadian food regulations on meal replacements.[21]

In July 2017, Soylent was sold offline for the first time at 7-Eleven stores around Los Angeles.[22] By April 2018, Soylent was sold in over 8,000 7-Elevens around the United States and it is planned to be sold in Walmart.[23]

Soylent Powder is a powder that must be mixed with water to make a drink. The formulas for versions 1.0–1.8 have been published and are freely available.[24] Since version 1.2, all versions have been vegan (i.e., containing no eggs, dairy, or other animal-derived substances).[25]

Version

Changes

Release date

Soylent 1.0

First full version. Ingredients were finalized in January 2014, using rice as the protein source.[26] Shipments began in April[27] (vegan) and May[28] (regular) of 2014.

Early 2014

Soylent 1.1

The sucralose was decreased, giving it a more neutral flavor, and new digestive enzymes were added.[29]

Fats were incorporated into the powder that eliminated the need for the oil bottles, resulting in less packaging required in the shipping boxes. On the advice of F. Xavier Pi-Sunyer, a professor of medicine at Columbia University, it had a carb/fat/protein calorie ratio of 43/40/17.[32]Isomaltulose was added and gum acacia was removed.[33]

Improvements to texture from a reduction of oat flour and an addition of emulsifiers. Removal of powdered safflower and flaxseed oil which were both replaced by canola oil powder, supplementing the existing powdered high oleic sunflower oil and algal oil.[35]

The fiber source shifts from isomaltooligosaccharide to soluble corn fiber. Replaces all algal ingredients with high oleic canola creamer. Usage of gums is halved. Serving size is same while weight per serving increased.[38]

With the 2020-required Reference Daily Intake guidelines, the potassium and fiber has increased per serving; all vitamin and mineral content has been increased or decreased to follow the revised guidelines.[39] Cacao Powder version 1.9 is the first flavored powder product from the company.

Soylent Drink, originally called Soylent 2.0, is premixed Soylent with various flavorings added, sold in a bottle.

Soylent Original, Coffiest, Cacao and Nectar bottles going from left to right.

Soylent Strawberry bottles

Flavor

Description

Release date

Original

First pre-mixed Soylent liquid product and it alters the carb/fat/protein ratios to 33/47/20; it has a glycemic index of 49.2 and a glycemic load of 16.7.[40] About half of the lipid calories come from algal sources and it uses soy for its protein source.[41]

Soylent Bar was Soylent in the form of a solid, edible bar. It was discontinued in October 2016 after reports of gastrointestinal problems.[49]

Version

Changes

Release date

Soylent Bar 1.0

First solid-form Soylent product at 250 calories.[50] Introduced with a carb/fat/protein calorie ratio of 43/38/19. Had a glycemic index of 55 and a glycemic load of 13.[51] Introduced in salted caramel flavor.

The makers of Soylent say it contains all the nutrients necessary for a healthy lifestyle.[5] There may be social drawbacks of living on a Soylent-only diet, since some critics have said that it comes at the expense of the pleasures from eating and sharing food.[53]

Some people have experienced gastrointestinal symptoms from consumption of Soylent.[54][53] Speculation on the cause of such symptoms sometimes centered around the amount of dietary fiber contained in the product, which is known to cause such symptoms when diets are abruptly altered to increase amounts of fiber consumption. Later versions of the product lowered the amount of fiber content, but this did not stop the reports of gastrointestinal problems. The lower fiber content of the product led to additional criticisms of not containing an adequate amount, compared to daily recommendations, leading some to utilize fiber supplementation.

As of October 24, 2017, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is blocking sales of Soylent from Canada on the premise that the label on Soylent does not meet the CFIA requirements to be listed as a meal replacement.[55] Shipping Soylent to Canada has been blocked by the CFIA until Rosa Foods makes changes to its products; Canadian shipments first began in June 2015.

Comparison from the Soylent FAQ[56] on Proposition 65 chemicals in Soylent versus other foods.

On August 13, 2015, nonprofit environmental and corporate social responsibility watchdog As You Sow filed a notice of intent to pursue a lawsuit against the makers of Soylent, claiming that Soylent did not adequately label its product given the levels of lead and cadmium present in the drink. The basis for the lawsuit lies in California's Proposition 65, a law that requires additional labeling for food products containing trace amounts of certain substances.

Although Soylent contains levels of lead and cadmium far below the national safety levels set by the FDA, it does contain 12 to 25 times the level of lead and 4 times the level of cadmium allowable in a product without additional labeling as specified by Proposition 65.[57][58] A lawyer who has worked on settlements of Proposition 65 suits described the case as "alarmist", as the levels are well below FDA limits of what is allowed in food products.[59] However, as Soylent is marketed as a complete meal replacement, many customers consume the drinks three times a day, equating to 36 to 75 times the lead and 12 times the level of cadmium without the Prop 65 label.[60] As You Sow believes these levels may be harmful.[57] Lead is a neurotoxin that accumulates in soft tissues and bones, and even at low levels is linked to nerve damage, lower IQ, and reproductive problems including decreased sperm count. Cadmium is also a toxic heavy metal and has been linked to kidney, liver, and bone damage.[60]

Soylent's website displays the Proposition 65 warning required by California.[59] Rosa Foods published the position that the levels of heavy metal content in Soylent "are in no way toxic, and Soylent remains completely safe and nutritious".[56] Rosa Foods also published an infographic and spreadsheet based on an FDA study of heavy metal content in common foods, comparing two selected example meals to servings of Soylent with a similar amount of caloric intake. Both of the company's chosen comparison meals include high levels of cadmium and arsenic, along with levels of lead similar to those of Soylent; although one of them includes tuna and the other includes salmon, providing over 97% of the arsenic in each proposed meal, with spinach providing 74% of the cadmium in the higher-cadmium meal and fruit cocktail providing 71% of the lead in the higher-lead meal.

On October 12, 2016, the company announced it would halt sales of the Soylent Bar due to reports of gastrointestinal illness, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.[61] The company asked customers to discard any unconsumed bars and said it would offer full refunds.[62] On October 21, 2016, the company triggered a product recall, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) announced it had commenced a food safety investigation.[63]

On October 27, 2016, the company also halted sales of Soylent Powder.[64] The company said tests on the bar had come back negative for contamination, but also said that some powder users had reported similar stomach-related symptoms from consuming the powder.[65][66]

The company initially suspected soy or sucraloseintolerance.[67] However, on November 7, 2016, Soylent instead blamed algal flour for making people sick, and said it planned to remove algal flour from future formulations of the powders and bars,[68] which it did in the next formulation version 1.7 introduced on December 15, 2016.[69][37] The drink-based products use algal oil, not algal flour, so were deemed to be safe for users.

TerraVia, the supplier of Soylent's algal ingredients, published a fact sheet in response to media coverage for its algal flour.[70]

Rhinehart called the flavor of the original versions "minimal", "broad" and "nonspecific".[71]
Soylent 1.0 contains soylecithin and sucralose as masking flavors and to adjust appearance, texture and smell.[26]
Before version 1.4, vanillin was included as an ingredient for flavoring.[72]

Reviews on the taste of powdered Soylent vary. One reviewer said he was "pleasantly surprised" with the "rich, creamy, and strangely satisfying" flavor,[53] and another likened it to that of a vanilla milkshake with the texture of pancake batter.[74] Negative reviewers said it tasted "like someone wrung out a dishtowel into a glass",[75] said "my mouth tastes hot and like old cheese",[75] or that it was "purposefully bland", "vile" and made the taster "gag"[76] and compared the taste to "homemade nontoxic Play-Doh".[53][54]

Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times said he "found Soylent to be a punishingly boring, joyless product".[54] Chris Ziegler of The Verge, who experimented with subsisting only on Soylent for almost a month, said that although he liked and "never really tired of the flavor", he still concluded that "Soylent isn't living, it's merely surviving", and described the apple he ate at the end of that period as "my first meal back from the abyss" and the best he'd ever had in his life.[53]
Adrian Chen of Gawker said "Soylent looks as appetizing as it sounds. The combination of its off-white color, opacity and viscosity made it look – sorry to be gross here – like watered-down semen."[75] He said he "was having trouble getting it down", and eventually "dumped the whole thing in the sink".[75]

Both Manjoo and Ziegler said they had experienced some gastrointestinal problems from drinking it.[54][53] Lee Hutchinson of Ars Technica also reported a brief period of "adaptation gas" at the beginning of a four-day experiment.[13]

Amongst the new flavors, Mocha has been described as similar to a "caffeinated Nesquik drink,"[77] and Nectar has been described negatively as tasting like "lemon aspartame."[78]

^ abHutchinson, Lee (29 January 2014). "Soylent gets tested, scores a surprisingly wholesome nutritional label". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2015-06-11. However, the results of the nutrition testing done to gain the label have established that Soylent meets the Food and Drug Administration's standards for a whole raft of healthy claims: "Everything from reduced risk of heart disease and some cancers to absence of tooth decay," said Rhinehart. Based on the testing, he explained, Soylent can make many of the health and nutrient claims that the FDA tracks.